$75M to help decontaminate soil
Province announces cash to clean up polluted sites across island of Montreal
The provincial government will invest $75 million to clean up polluted areas in Montreal over the next four years.
Quebec Environment Minister Isabelle Melançon made the announcement Sunday, accompanied by Municipal Affairs Minister Martin Coiteux and Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante.
The Montreal funding is in addition to more than $55 million announced last year to decontaminate polluted lots across Quebec, because the island is a case apart.
“More than 20 per cent of Quebec’s contaminated properties are on the island of Montreal,” Melançon said, adding that the island was once home to heavy industry with highly contaminated soil soaked with oils and metals.
The new investment will help Montreal accelerate its decontamination process, Melançon said.
The announcement was made at Verdun’s Maison de la culture, which was built on decontaminated land and is an example of what the city would like to do with its rehabilitated lands, Plante said.
It’s not clear yet which areas will be subjected to decontamination with this program, or how the funds will be distributed, she said. But priorities include reclaiming Montreal’s riverbanks, “which are often linked to our industrial heritage, and we want to increase affordable social housing,” Plante said.
The mayor said the injection of funds marks a historic agreement between Quebec and Montreal, because the city will be completely autonomous in deciding where to invest the money.
“I’m very proud of it,” she said. “Something that is very important to me is housing,” said Plante, who plans to have 12,000 affordable social housing units built. The funds announced Sunday will go a long way toward achieving that goal, she said.
Residential areas are less contaminated than industrial lots, so rehabilitating lands for social housing should cost less, she said.
“It will be throughout the island. There are a lot of projects just waiting for that extra money, so this is good news today.”
As economic development is also very important, the investment will support other projects as well, Plante said. For example, highly contaminated land in eastend Montreal could be developed if the land was rehabilitated.
The private sector is “where we’ll have to make deals with different partners,” Plante said. Industrial areas are much more expensive than residential ones, and Montreal does not plan to assume all the costs, she said.
The city also wants to support development of such projects as schools, cultural or community centres, and sports installations. The needs are great, Plante said.
Plante referred to Molson Coors’ economic development plan to move to Longueuil. Montreal had proposed a site in the east of the island, near Highway 40, but the Metropolitan Expressway is often congested, and thus isn’t ideal for transporting raw materials or beer. Also, one of the proposed lots was contaminated.
“We were working really hard with them to make it happen,” Plante said of Molson staying in Montreal.
“But unfortunately, because of their timeline it was impossible to compete with another place that didn’t need decontamination, which means less money and less time wasted. I want to avoid that kind of situation in our industrial areas.”
The city may decide to clean up polluted lots by using new technology that does not require carting away contaminated soil.
It’s not known exactly how long it will take to do the cleanups, as each piece of land is a different size and contaminated by different toxic products.